Police chief killed by roadside bomb

A roadside bomb was detonated in the Iraqi capital Baghdad today, killing a local police chief and another officer.

The explosion in western Baghdad’s al-Washash district also wounded a third policeman who was evacuated to al-Yarmouk hospital.

Police identified one of the dead as Colonel Mouyad Mohammed Bashar, who was chief of al-Mamoun police station. He died soon after the explosion from wounds suffered in the blast.

Film footage from Associated Press Television News showed a destroyed white police pickup truck, its doors smashed and blood splattered across the driver’s seat.

At al-Yarmouk hospital, a bloodied policeman who survived the explosion lay on a bed, bandages wrapped around his stomach and leg.

Police in Iraq have repeatedly been targeted by insurgents pressing a campaign to destabilise the interim government. The guerrillas see police as collaborators with the 160,000 mostly American coalition forces deployed here struggling to restore order.

A US marine was killed in action west of the Iraqi capital today, the military said.

The marine died conducting “security and stability operations”, in Anbar province, a volatile, Sunni-dominated region west of Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

The name of the marine, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was withheld.